Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s campaign for Virginia governor has begun airing an ad criticizing Terry McAuliffe for his work with the controversial fiber-optics company Global Crossing. But the Republican’s campaign has hesitated to discuss the ad as questions have been raised about the way it was made. The ad says that McAuliffe “cashed in, walking away with millions” in profits from selling Global Crossing stock, even though the company ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2002. In the ad, three former Global Crossing employees describe how their lives were affected. “He probably had some insider knowledge; it was a...

RICHMOND, Va. – In a governor's race that's all about jobs, Terry McAuliffe is facing questions about huge profits he made from a company that collapsed two years later, leaving 10,000 people unemployed. ... In 1997, McAuliffe sank $100,000 into the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based startup's bold plan to link North America and Europe with a trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable, a super-fast conduit for voice, video and digital data. "When I invested in Global Crossing, understand that it was a very risky deal," ... His return was $8.1 million, ...

Fred Thompson's decision to skip Wednesday's New Hampshire debate invited ridicule from the Republican '08ers who view him as a lightweight. But his thin public record is cold comfort to one Democratic powerbroker. In fact, it has former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe downright nervous. "There's not much there. That's what makes me nervous," said McAuliffe who remembers toiling for Jimmy Carter when he was trounced by Ronald Reagan. "I'm never underestimating another B-Movie actor." McAuliffe offered his assessment to ABC News just moments after Thompson entered the fray. "I am certainly not disrespecting them," Thompson said of his '08 rivals...

<p>As lawmakers prepare to grill Global Crossing and Qwest Communications execs next week, a handful of damaging e-mails seems to prove they used sham trades to boost profits. "I wish this company would just come clean with the Street regarding our guidance. This swap crap is going to kill us in the long run and I'm personally very fed up," wrote Global Crossing senior finance executive Joey Wong to colleagues last fall.</p>

WASHINGTON--An executive from a company that manages a large portion of the Internet's infrastructure on Thursday slammed federal wiretapping rules expected to take effect next spring. Paul Kouroupas, vice president of regulatory affairs for Global Crossing, strongly criticized the Federal Communications Commission's broadening of a 1994 law--originally intended to cover telephone providers--as disproportionately costly, complex, and riddled with privacy concerns. His company is one of the world's largest Internet backbone providers. "Our customers are large Fortune 500 companies--not too many of those companies are conducting drug deals or terrorist activities out of Merrill Lynch's offices or using their phones in...

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has told business associates and Democratic donors that he will chair Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign next year, according to several Democratic sources. Together, Clinton, the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, and McAuliffe, the top money man in Democratic politics, have a good chance of raising $100 million before the first official contest, the Iowa caucuses in January 2008.While Clinton and her staff insist she is focused solely on winning reelection in New York this November, the decision over who will be in charge of getting her elected to the...

Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week “broke” the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt... A search found a listing for "writer and journalist" Leslie Cauley, indicating she gave $2,000 to Gephardt on June 30, 2003, when Gephardt was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And that seems not to be her only tie to Democratic politics ... Cauley's link to a Democratic campaign seems likely...

U.S. Hiring Chinese Co. to Scan Nukes By TED BRIDIS and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers 27 minutes ago WASHINGTON - In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere. ADVERTISEMENT The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present. Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from...

In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere. The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present. Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from the U.S. coast, where cargo would be likely to be inspected again. The contract is currently being finalized.

One of the things that makes me a moderate conservative rather than an extreme-right conservative is that I have never forgotten something my business-law college professor told us – that when government passes a new law or regulation that places limits on what businessmen or markets can do, it’s always because some people acted to excess and spoiled everything. Although the situation has changed slightly for the better, this kind of condition clearly exists in the area of top-executive pay (that of CEOs), and in the aftermath of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Global Crossing, cries out for some action.

Jews Worldwide Bombard* I.D.F. Soldiers with Pizza An Internet Site Allows People From All Over the World to Send Pizza to Soldiers in the Field -- and the Interest is High I.D.F. soldiers out in the field have been suprised in recent days, but the surprise introduces a new trend: without any prior warning a box of pizza suddenly arrives. Behind the pizza boxes is an internet site that was set up by a group of reserve soldiers. The site, http://PizzaIDF.org, offers supporters of Israel throughout the whole world the opportunity to join the war effort in the territories and...

Today's example of MSM bias: this Business Week article by Leo Hindery, Jr., titled "Tragedy and Telecom." The article is subtitled, "How the Bush Administration's antiregulation stance contributed to the post-Katrina communications collapse -- and what should be done now." Mr. Hindery's indictment of the Bush administration is the latest effort to blame the President for just about everything associated with Hurricane Katrina. Its reasoning is so fragmentary, however, that Hindery never does explain why "the Bush administration's antiregulation stance" had anything to do with the hurricane or its aftermath. That doesn't stop Hindery from dropping the usual snide comments....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have decided against filing civil charges against Global Crossing Ltd. founder Gary Winnick following a probe of its accounting practices, his attorney said on Monday. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had been expected to announce a settlement with Winnick and three other former Global Crossing executives last week, capping a two-year investigation of the international telecommunications company. Winnick's attorney, Gary Naftalis, said in a statement that the SEC "has determined that no charges should be brought against Gary Winnick. We always believed that the evidence demonstrated that Gary Winnick acted lawfully and properly in...

RARELY HAVE THE HOLDERS of any set of political views and policy preferences been so thoroughly caricatured as the "neoconservatives" of the Bush years. To critics, this group of policymakers (preeminently, in the Defense Department and the Office of the Vice President), along with their allies on the outside (preeminently, in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD), is responsible for a kind of hijacking of U.S. foreign policy in the wake of 9/11. Intoxicated by American power and blinded by a utopian vision, the neoconservatives (in the critics' telling) set the country on a disastrous and unnecessary attempt to remake...

Hannity: Alright Terry, let me ask you this. McAuliffe: Shoot Sean. Hannity: He spent 20 years in the United States Senate, 300 Bills proposed, he only passed five. Can you look into the camera right there -- and don't spin -- one specific piece of legislation that John Kerry passed that made this country better in the past 20 years. Look right in the camera right there. What is it? McAuliffe: Yeah. I can tell you John Kerry was involved in a lot of pieces of legislation. Hannity: No, no, no. One he wrote, that one accomplishment with his name...

<p>Incorruptible labor legends Samuel Gompers and George Meany must be spinning in their graves. After becoming the first president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886, Mr. Gompers founded the Union Labor Life Insurance Co. (now the major subsidiary of the ULLICO holding company) in 1925 in order to provide affordable insurance and other financial services to union members. Mr. Meany, who became the first president of the merged AFL-CIO in 1955 and served in that capacity for a quarter-century, worked inexhaustibly to eliminate corruption within the labor movement &#8212; which included expelling the Teamsters from the AFL-CIO in 1957. That same year, the AFL-CIO adopted a rule mandating the expulsion of any union official invoking the Fifth Amendment to avoid scrutiny in a corruption case.</p>

Former Ullico exec refuses to testify to lawmakers (GLOBAL CROSSING, TERRY MCAULIFFE) Tue June 17, 2003 05:08 PM ET WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - The former top executive of union-owned insurer Ullico Inc. refused to testify to lawmakers on Tuesday about a sweetheart stock deal that netted board members some $5.6 million and caused his replacement last month. Former Ullico Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Georgine invoked his constitutional right not to testify at a hearing by the House Education and Workforce Committee on the scandal, which is also being probed by regulators and prosecutors. Rep John Boehner, the Ohio...

A former New Jersey congressman is raising concerns that a Beijing-based buyout of bankrupt telecommunications giant Global Crossing could give Chinese military intelligence access to top secret FBI and CIA communications. In a joint takeover bid that could thoroughly compromise U.S. national security, China's Hutchison Whampoa Company and Singapore Telemedia Technologies (STT) have offered $250 million for a 61.5 percent stake in Global Crossing, the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday. Noting that the telecommunications company carries all the confidential data of the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA, IDT Corp. chief executive and former GOP congressman Jim...

Law.com U.S. Could Sink Global Crossing Deal Tuesday February 18, 2:01 am ET Otis Bilodeau, Legal Times For most battered companies struggling to climb back from bankruptcy, the biggest challenges are appeasing creditors and selling a judge on a viable plan for recovery. But telecommunications giant Global Crossing Ltd. faces a separate, steeper hurdle: It has to persuade a secretive U.S. regulatory body that the company's reorganization plan isn't a threat to national security. Indeed, Global Crossing's hopes of emerging from Chapter 11 could be dashed by U.S. officials who are questioning whether the company's proposed sale to...

Federal prosecutors have decided not to file criminal charges against Global Crossing, Chairman Gary Winnick or any of its other executives over aggressive accounting practices or alleged document destruction, sources close to the investigation said. The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles simply lacked enough evidence, one source said. The decision closes the books on the U.S. attorney's probe into the fiber-optic network builder, which rocketed to prominence under Winnick and filed for bankruptcy in January with $ 12.4 billion in debts. The end of the criminal investigation doesn't halt an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission or ongoing...

ZURICH, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Credit Suisse (CSGZn.VX) insisted on Friday it was adequately capitalised, hoping to quash fears it might need to raise fresh capital which sent its ailing shares down over 15 percent to their lowest in over nine years. "Due to the drop in its share price yesterday and today, Credit Suisse Group wishes to announce that it is not aware of any objective reasons prompting this development," Switzerland's second-largest financial conglomerate said in a brief statement. "The group's present capital resources remain adequate, and as stated before, no capital increase of the group is planned," it...

Friday August 16, 7:46 pm Eastern TimeReuters Company NewsStock fraud sting operation could be tip of icebergBy Toni Clarke NEW YORK, Aug 16 (Reuters) - A two-year federal sting operation led to a mass indictment this week of 58 stockbrokers and corporate executives on charges of stock fraud and money-laundering. It's just the tip of the iceberg, lawyers say. One of the most prominent figures caught in what investigators call the "Bermuda Short" operation was Mark Valentine, the suspended chairman of Canadian brokerage Thomson Kernaghan & Co. Ltd., according to FBI officials. The arrest of Valentine, who was detained in...

Sale of Global Crossing Faces Trouble Amid Paucity of Bids Wed Jul 17,11:04 PM ET By: Henny Sender and Dennis Berman, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal NEW YORK -- Texas investor Richard Rainwater, Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT), Platinum Equity LLC and Gores Technology Group have submitted bids for parts or all of Global Crossing Ltd. (GX - News) Still, it is a meager showing for the auction, scheduled for July 24 , of the telecommunications company under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This increases the likelihood that Global Crossing will be split into pieces. People familiar with the...

Bankruptcy court documents suggest that Global Crossing altered a deal last year with IMG Worldwide, the sports marketing company, in an action similar to those that have prompted federal investigators to ask whether the company used swapping transactions to inflate sales. Under the $30 million deal with TWI Interactive, a unit of IMG that uses Web sites to market sports events like Wimbledon and personalities like Tiger Woods, Global Crossing and TWI agreed to exchange $15 million over five years. TWI sought the agreement to acquire communications services like Web site management and capacity from Global Crossing, while Global Crossing...

Saturday May 25, 2:16 pm Eastern TimePress ReleaseSOURCE: Global CrossingGlobal Crossing Confirms Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Unable to Reach Agreement With Creditor Constituencies MADISON, N.J., May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Crossing today confirmed that its major creditor constituencies were unable to reach agreement on definitive documentation with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte. Ltd. for an investment in Global Crossing. This agreement would have resulted in the two companies securing a break-up fee and other bidding protections.John Legere, Global Crossing's chief executive officer stated: "While we are disappointed that an agreement could not be reached at...

OUSTON, May 19 — Enron and Global Crossing used a complex deal brokered by a third company to sidestep accounting rules in a March 2001 transaction that was designed to help Global Crossing disguise a loan and allow each company to book revenue, according to executives and traders involved in the transaction.The people involved said the deal, a swap of fiber optic network capacity and services, was brokered by Reliant Resources, one of the nation's biggest traders of energy contracts, which had expanded into the network-capacity trading market. The transaction helped disguise what was essentially an exchange of long-term...

WASHINGTON – Top Clinton Democrats found themselves in legal hot water Tuesday when Judical Watch filed its promised lawsuit against the telecom giant Global Crossing and some of its Democrat benefactors. After a series of NewsMax.com exposés, a congressional committee held a hearing on Global Crossing in late March, and other House panels are investigating the company, which experienced an Enron-like bankruptcy, leaving shareholders and employees high and dry. The suit names 13 top officers and directors of the company, including chairman and CEO Gary Winnick. The suit was filed on behalf of Global Crossing shareholders who have brought claims...

New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo has called on gubernatorial rival Carl McCall to return a $29,000 contribution from collapsed telecommunications giant Global Crossing. But Cuomo refuses to do the same with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, even though Global Crossing CEO Gary Winnick has showered more than 30 times that much on the Clinton family. "The New York State pension fund lost $75 million from Global Crossing," Cuomo campaign manager Josh Isay complained to the New York Post this week. "[McCall] should return that money and show that he's not profiting when the state's pensioners are losing money," he...

hile more than 50 companies have expressed confidential interest in acquiring Global Crossing, their identities are no longer secret to one another, courtesy of an e-mail message from Global Crossing's lawyers.The e-mail message was sent to the potential bidders on March 28 by an employee of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the New York law firm that is serving as Global Crossing's counsel in bankruptcy proceedings.Although the message included only routine information on bidding procedures for Global Crossing, it inadvertently named each of the more than 50 recipients by copying their e-mail addresses at the top of the message.The potential...

Global Crossing Ltd. (GBLXQ) is seeking bankruptcy court approval for an employment agreement with Chief Executive Officer John J. Legere that would cut the executive's salary by 30% during the company's restructuring. A hearing is scheduled for May 1 at 9:45 a.m. EDT before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Objections may be filed through April 18, according to court papers obtained recently by Dow Jones Newswires.Four months prior to filing for Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 28, Global Crossing hired Legere as its chief executive. At the time, he was chief executive of Asia Global Crossing Ltd. (AX),...

A bitter battle is raging between John J. Legere, Global Crossing's chief executive, and high-ranking executives at its prized subsidiary, Asia Global Crossing (news/quote). The hostility could make it harder for the companies to work together as Global Crossing struggles to find a buyer or to emerge intact from bankruptcy, people close to the company said over the weekend. The dispute arises from a variety of tensions between Mr. Legere and the Asian unit, where he was chief executive for 21 months before becoming chief of the parent company last October. The issues, according to people close to the company,...

Pentagon seeks scrutiny of big foreign deals By Peter Spiegel in Washington Published: April 5 2002 The US Defense Department wants all large foreign acquisitions of American companies to be approved by a secretive national security committee, a move designed to restrict access to sensitive US technology. According to draft legislation written by the Pentagon and obtained by the Financial Times, all deals with overseas buyers valued at more than $100m would have to gain approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an obscure interagency panel chaired by the Treasury Department and charged with ensuring foreign acquisitions...

LOS ANGELES, Apr 03, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Global Crossing notified the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday that it will delay filing its 10-K financial report. The company said Arthur Andersen, the firm's troubled public accountants, won't be able to deliver an audit of its financial statements for the year that ended Dec. 31, 2001, because of an ongoing investigation. A special committee of Arthur Andersen's board of directors is investigating allegations made by a former Global Crossing employee about questionable accounting and financial reporting practices, the filing said. Due to the Arthur Andersen investigation, the...

Arthur Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino resigns 03/26/2002 Associated Press CHICAGO - Arthur Andersen LLP chief executive Joseph Berardino resigned Tuesday, bowing to mounting pressure as a result of the company's role in the Enron scandal. His announcement came four days after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker urged top management to step aside so he can install and head an independent board in a last-ditch plan to save the company. The key element of Volcker's plan is the dismissal of a federal indictment against Andersen alleging obstruction of justice in destroying Enron-related documents. The Justice Department has not said...

he preliminary inquiry into the causes of the bankruptcy of Global Crossing brought in a primary distinction: GC, Inc., was not Enron, Inc. Global Crossing's accounting could be criticized for the use of devices that in fact tell less than what, in retrospect, we know we should have wanted to know. But it appears that nothing was concealed, that if the "swap" convention is finally adjudged formally deceptive, blame for using it by Global Crossing is tendentious. The chief executive of the company, John J. Legere, spoke of his company as the victim of an industry-wide slump, aggravated by overcapacity...

WASHINGTON, Mar 22, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Officials of the bankrupt fiber optics giant Global Crossing denied on Thursday that deceptive accounting practices were part of their company's financial collapse. "Global Crossing is no Enron," they told skeptical lawmakers. "Some may see superficial similarities between Enron and Global Crossing," chief executive officer John Legere and chief financial officer Dan Cohrs said in a statement to a House Financial Services Committee panel. Indeed, they noted that, like the energy trading corporation, Global Crossing had seen a collapse in its stock price, had had executive stock sales and had...

The House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hold the first Congressional hearing today on fallout from the bankruptcy filing of Global Crossing, whose financial collapse has fueled concerns about accounting practices at some telecommunications companies. Global Crossing, which is based in Bermuda but is managed from offices in Madison, N.J., and Beverly Hills, Calif., filed for bankruptcy protection in late January. The company, which says it has more than $22 billion in assets, has been accused of using questionable transactions to inflate its revenue improperly. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the F.B.I. are investigating Global Crossing's accounting practices....

lobal Crossing and the Blackstone Group, its bankruptcy adviser, did not disclose a complex communications-capacity deal that was reached with a Blackstone affiliate several months before Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy protection in late January, according to regulatory filings.The failure to disclose the earlier transaction raises questions about intricate dealings by Global Crossing executives and its business partners around the world as it approached a financial collapse last fall.Global Crossing's omission of the deal may have been a serious lapse by Global Crossing's management, several corporate governance experts said. The deal was reworked in January and is now under...

Global Crossing Ltd.'s chief executive and chief financial officer will testify before the House of Representatives this week about how the company's bankruptcy has affected workers, investors, and financial markets. Chief executive John Legere and CFO Dan Cohrs are scheduled to appear Thursday before the Committee on Financial Service's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the company said Sunday. In letters to Legere and Cohrs, Rep. Sue Kelly, R-N.Y., said the hearing would ``examine the effects of the Global Crossing bankruptcy on investors, financial markets, and employees.'' Global Crossing filed the fourth-largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization case in history on Jan....

rom the beginning it was a seductive relationship, with mutual needs and desires overwhelming the warnings to proceed cautiously. Now one of the parties, Global Crossing, is said to owe about $95 million to the other, J. P. Morgan Chase (news/quote), which has little chance of recovering more than pennies on the dollar.Among the investment banks that did business with Global Crossing, J. P. Morgan Chase in particular saw Global Crossing as the main chance — a way to make its mark in telecommunications, a red-hot field for investment bankers in the late 90's.The mark, unfortunately, became a stigma....

<p>The unfolding scandal involving Global Crossing may be about to engulf an unlikely group: the U.S. labor movement. The labor connection involves a union-owned life insurance company that was one of the original investors in the fiber-optic outfit, providing some of initial seed money to Global founder Gary Winnick. It was a savvy deal for the unions that own the insurer, ULLICO Inc., earning the company a $500 million profit on a $7.6 million investment.........</p>

LOU DOBBS is reporing that ERNEST YOUNG one of the TOP FIVE ACCOUNTING FIRMS HAS REFUSED TO ACQUIRE AA!!!!! This is NOT good NEWS!!!! if YOUNG refuses to accept AA offer to sell itself to YOUNG that means only one thing FOLKS!!!! AA is in FAR more seious shape then we realize and we could be looking at the other accountting firms REFUSING TO ACQUIRE AA as early as Mid April!!!!

<p>At an important bankruptcy hearing in New York today, Global Crossing executives will seek approval from a judge to sell the company to two Asian telecoms, one of which has close ties to the Chinese government. Permission should be denied. Given the slew of unanswered questions about the collapse of Global Crossing, which is being investigated by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, now is not the time to approve a hastily arranged transaction that raises serious national security questions.</p>

ASHINGTON, March 12 #151; The House Energy and Commerce Committee began an investigation today into accounting practices and executives' sales of company stock at Global Crossing, the telecommunications company that has filed for bankruptcy protection. Global Crossing faces accusations that it used sham transactions to increase revenue and that it misled investors about its financial health.A second House panel, the Financial Services Committee, plans to hold a hearing on March 21 to examine the downfall of Global Crossing, a committee aide said.The travails of Global Crossing have been largely ignored on Capitol Hill in the wake of the collapse...

WASHINGTON, Mar 12, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A congressional committee on Tuesday asked bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd. to explain its accounting practices and compensation packages for top executives. The letter from leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked the first time congressional investigators have sought documents from Global Crossing, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Lawmakers said they want to determine whether Global Crossing. concealed its true financial condition, similar to the way Enron Corp. has acknowledged misstating earnings, revenue and debt in recent years. Global Crossing quot;may have engaged in similar...